Turkey's Government Doesn't Understand Its Digital Enemy
A boy on a man's shoulders wears a Guy Fawkes mask during the third day of anti-government protests in Istanbul. Thanassis Stavrakis/AP
The Turkish government has incurred the wrath of Anonymous and the Syrian Electronic Army.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has blamed the violent mess in Turkey on everything but the government. He specifically cast blame on "a problem called Twitter," and police across the country subsequently arrested at least 25 people, apparently for the crime of tweeting some photos and videos of cops assaulting protesters. By doing so, Erdogan and his government have incurred the wrath of Anonymous and the Syrian Electronic Army, the notorious do-gooders and pranksters who are now claim to have brought down the prime minister's website offline Wednesday morning.
If you tried to access Erdogan's website on Wednesday, you may have noticed that it wasn't loading. We tried it a few times, and it's back now, but we experienced delays in loading the site. According to Turkey's Hurriyet Daily News, that's because the two hacking groups — SEA is most famous for hijacking the AP's Twitter feed by claiming an attack on the White House had been made — are claiming responsibility.
"Anonymous launched the operation #OpTurkey on June 2, conducting a series of attacks in response to the government's heavy-handed response to the Taksim Gezi Park protests in Istanbul and around the country," writes the team at Hurriyet, which adds that the "group managed to take down access to the Official Gazette and other sites with a hacking attempt late on June 2." And in a release, a member of Anonymous posted user names apparently attached to the prime minister's website.